heart wrenching words spoke
honoring lives of many
giving them life
words cannot describe
a family's sudden loss
and tears are not seen
many read the words
and cry behind closed doors
hiding true feelings
Original prompt “The Song My Soul Never Seeked” by Hiya Sharma
Not for contest
The freedom you promised was finite,
Halfheartedly holding hope
Even as you eviscerated vows.
Stillborn, the song was silenced~
Obituaries written, often incomplete,
Names with no reference
Gone with the heartbeats of gold~
Mayflies and magpies and magical madmen,
Yestermornings and yearnings~
Still the song stays silent,
Only an occasional, old memory of ocarinas,
Unencumbered and undiluted
Like sorrow searching.
Neverending echoes of emptiness~
Even as life enfolds life~
Visions of vast wastelands
Etched like embarrassed prayers
Remembered too late.
Splintered and tossed aside
Every hope, every desire,
Every wish, every evening dream~
Kindness is washed away in rage,
Every note of the hymn is lost,
Deserted and desolate.
THE SHEER NOTION OF SURVIVING SEVERE TERRORIST THREATS HOME INVASIONS FROM MY STALKERS SEARCHING FOR OBITUARIIES HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMAS MARRIAGE CERTIFICATES MILLITARY RECORDS OUTDATED CANCEL EXPIRED DEACTIVATED ID CARDS RANDOMLY ALTERING IMMUNIZATIONS RECORDS PASSPORTS MY STALKER BELIEVED SHE COULD ACTUALLY EXTORT MY HUSBANDS PURPLE HEART MEDAL HACKING INTO COMPUTERS TV AMAZON ACCOUNTS FINDING MY COLLECTION NON TAXABLE PENNY SENDING PRAYERS TO MY ENEMIES CORRUPT FEMALE MELVIN PURVIS OBSSESSED WITH MY LIFE HENCE MY DEATH MY SPOUSE MY FAMILY INCLUDING DECEASED LOVED ONES OBITUARIES UNAFRAID OF YOUR THREATS I FOUND YOUR TROJAN HORSE FROM VERIZON TO YAHOO TO APOLLO BACK TO YAHOO VIRUS MALWARE DISCOVERED YOUR TRASH THAT KNOCK OUT VERIZON CUSTOMERS TWISTED YOU TRIED TO INSTALL ON MY OLD COMPUTER HACKING INTO PERSONAL FILES MEDICAL RECORDS BILL PAYING RECIEPTS MULTIPLIED BY MELVIN PURVIS SUBTRACT JOHN DILLINGER AL CAPONE ADD NON TAXABLE PENNY DIVIDED BY ONE PHENNING BITTE DATA BREACH IDENTITY FRAUD CYBER ATTACK NOT A LEGAL TENDER BLUEBERRY DANISH SCONE FREE
Behind the moon, where hunters hunt
In secret, the whiff of boiling lipsticks
Chastises the lungs of scorpions.
Murals hang on battered doors of
Decrepit banners, hoisted by dust-swept
Elements of colours –etched and painted.
Drums are sober, frightening withered
Hands that beat them to lean delirium.
Rotten eggs hatch on their own,
Their shells, white-toothed fragments of
Lost archives, posted with the obituaries
Of totems of muted art.
The silence on the moon haunts.
That on the back of the moon sears,
Sears incoherently,
All agonies of a wasted age with fires,
Moon fires, old and ravenous,
Which smelt the vagaries of a
Limitless anxiety.
We live in a matrix of unpredictability,
your fate randomized at best
by numbers shouted out by a bingo caller.
B for birth marks, qualities and defects.
I for inherent or sudden health issues.
N for near death experiences altering your life.
G for grand events that bring you happiness.
O for obituaries and the inevitability of death.
We can't take anything for granted.
We draw straws and just accept that
life is a gift ~ come what may.
AP: 2nd place 2025, Honorable Mention 2025
The Stupid Bowl is Over
Except for the analyses
the replays
the highlight reels
the interviews
the talk-shows
the editorials
the commentaries
the speculation
the what-ifs
the tributes
the obituaries
(the hangovers)...
It ain’t over ‘til next February
I feel sluggish
can barely move through the sludge and mud
burdened with the woes of the world
turn off the news! my soul shrieks at me
it will bog you down
until you are stuck in a tar pit of unhappiness
This idea has merit
but am I ready to give up my horrible feelings?
gloom and doom sometimes works for me
I reach for a newspaper,
turning it to the obituaries
“not that!” screams my psyche
I do not care
I am tired of having my soul tell me what to do.
When I’m gliding blithely through my days,
Life, with its blunt, disconcerting ways,
interrupts my peace with sobering realities
that heighten my awareness and bring me to my knees
uttering praise for being spared or, for others, urgent pleas.
The fifteen obituaries in the paper one day last week
were all for people younger than I. Naturally, I seek
to enjoy a long life. I presume those people wanted that too!
I pray thoughts of mortality won’t leave me with a morbid view
but will motivate me to pursue goals, both old and new.
When news reports reveal the true state of the world,
it never fails: New hair-raising terrors are unfurled.
I shiver just thinking of future generations~~
grandkids, their kids, and theirs . . . and the deliberations
they must maneuver through to maintain solid foundations.
Sobering realities will continue to assault my peace of mind,
but due to a degree of late-in-life wisdom, I’m inclined
to prayerfully do what I can to fix or eliminate a situation,
then turn it over to the One in the highest station.
The Lord has power over every complication.
How time goes racing now when there's no need to--
when there's so little farther left to go:
over the river--under the trees. Time ought to lead us
slow...slow!
--Archibald MacLeish
1892-1982
We talk about bodily functions,
what works and what doesn't.
We talk about medications,
and name them one by one
hoping we will win
the who has the most contest.
We talk about obituaries
written daily in the local paper,
jokingly relieved
when we are not in it.
We talk about family
and tell the same stories
we have told and heard
for decades,
laughing or crying
in certain places
as if it is our first time
hearing the telling~
knowing our world is getting
smaller with each passing day,
that soon we will be
only names on a gravestone,
trampled and forgotten
in Time's relentless march.
I'm lost in words
I cannot write a poem
Is this a word depression
I await wet Autumn afternoons
for obituaries on past poets
Dead horizons roll on their heads
towards an uncertain future
Let’s play hangman,
let's play Russian roulette,
play chicken with an 18-wheeler
play the days away
with a dare and a do.
Is not life a tightrope
whether we like it or not?
Sometimes you are a
free climber on an impossible cliff face
you show the way,
sometimes you make the obituaries.
It's a game nothing more,
is it dangerous, is it exhilarating,
is it worth it?
A game has to play,
it's nothing real or lasting,
we all get to go home
leaving the toys behind us.
The smoking gun,
the hanging man,
the blazing crash
on a scorching highway,
toss the coin
play death for one more day.
Nicely bearing The Title Straight to Heaven
But the chap had lived A Short Twenty Seven
And he was wielding AK 47;
Some embarrassing gunshots in God’s Heaven!
You see: some obituaries read quite stupid:
This one made subject against Love and Cupid.
I could not excuse his khaki uniform:
I just could see he had lived A Life of Storm.
An obituary notice far from limpid,
A concentration on The Oddly Vapid:
Someone who’d roamed The Earth and it was rapid;
A message as tasteless as the insipid…
Why a weapon loaded and probably cocked,
In toughest fabric portraying a heart locked?
The Guy I could presume “Resting in Pieces;
Wherever he is like Snake: lots of hisses…
Mourners may on electric pole post such bill;
On my father’s house’s wall I might them kill!
STRANGE HOBBY
"reading the obituaries just to see if you are still alive"
Indiana Shaw . . .
"Do me" . . . : /
She has the ‘screws’.
Her hips are 'creaky'
her leg is 'playing up.’
I yell into her good ear.
"Nice Morning Freda!"
"Gout." She says,
still following a conversation in her head.
"I don't even drink!"
I know this is a stretch
for I am her secret `pusher'.
"I'm going out later, can I get you anything?"
She looks directly at me at last.
She has been studying the obituaries
in the local paper.
"Isn't it terrible?"
"Yes Freda it is."
We never discuss specifics,
agreeing tacitly
that most things are `terrible.’
"Just the usual"
I make a note to buy,
sliced white bread.
Laughing Cow cheese spreads (original flavor).
Bologna sausage (which she calls Baloney).
"Little Debbie" Frosted Fudge cakes
and a bottle of sweet sherry.
Her list of wants is not far from mine,
except for the sherry,
I like to think my list is a little more refined,
and I have long since broke-up
with 'Little Debbie'.
Today’s News Tomorrows Blues
David J Walker
Off white
Black typed
Picket fence newspapers
Stacked in racks unread
Everything said
Yesterday
Made news today
Everyone who bled
Or bruised made news
In the official records where
Only the dead are
Laid to rest in the haze of the
Obituaries details
Scattered like ashes among
The ads of mortuaries
On the next page the movies
Remind us of the lives we will
Never know
But let’s go to the show
And forget about life
Until tomorrow’s edition
Is put to bed
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